Part 14

In those parts of East Africa there is a tendency to imagine that a zareba is not essential to safety, and that a camp-fire serves all right to frighten lions away. It is a remarkable comment on this that over a hundred Indians employed on the Uganda Railway should have been seized by lions. In other parts of Africa even the natives are reluctant to go through the night unprotected by a zareba, because they know that lions when short of other prey are apt to attack human beings, and neither the hunter nor his camp-fire have any terrors for them.

However that may be, the true sportsman and naturalist in the tropics will continue to find himself obliged to encamp as best he may à la belle étoile, trusting to his lucky star to protect him as he sinks wearily to sleep.

* * * * *

The long caravan is again on the move, like a snake, over the velt. Word has come to me that at a distance of a few days’ march there has been a fall of rain. As by a miracle grass has sprung up, and plant-life is reborn, trees and bushes have put out new leaves, and immense numbers of wild animals have congregated in the region. Thither we are making our way, over stretches still arid and barren. Watering-places are few and far between and hidden away. But we know how to find them, and hard by one of them I have to pitch my camp for a time.

As we go we see endless herds of animals making for the same goal--zebras, gnus, oryx antelopes, hartebeests, Grant’s gazelles, impallahs, giraffes, ostriches, as well as numbers of rhinoceroses, all drawn as though by magic to the region of the rain.

With my taxidermist Orgeich I march at the head of my caravan. My camera has to remain idle, for once again, as so often happens, we get no sun. It would be useless to attempt snapshots in such unfavourable light.

Suddenly, at last, the entire aspect of the velt undergoes a change, and we have got into a stretch of country which has had a monopoly of the downfall. It is cut off quite perceptibly from the parched districts all around, and its fresh green aspect is refreshing and soothing to the eye. On and on we march for hour after hour, the wealth of animal life increasing as we go. Early this morning I had noted two rhinoceroses bowling along over the velt. They had had a bath and were gleaming and glistening in the sun.

Now we descry a huge something, motionless upon the velt, looking at first like the stump of a massive tree or like a squat ant-hill, but turning out on closer investigation to be a rhinoceros. It may seem strange that one can make any mistake even at one’s first sight of the animal, but every one who has gone after rhinoceroses much must have had the same astonishing or alarming experience.

In this case we have to deal with an unusually large specimen--a bull. It seems to be asleep. My sporting instincts are aroused. My men halt and crouch down upon the ground. I hold a brief colloquy with Orgeich. He also gets to the rear. I advance towards the rhinoceros over the broken ground between us--the wind favouring me, and a few parched-looking bushes serving me as cover. I get nearer and nearer--now I am only a hundred and fifty paces off, now only a hundred. The great beast makes no stir--it seems in truth to be asleep. Now I have got within eighty paces, now sixty. Between me and my adversary there is nothing but three-foot-high parched shrubs, quite useless as a protection. Ah! now he makes a move. Up goes his mighty head, suddenly all attention. My rifle rings out. Spitting and snorting, down he comes upon me in the lumbering gallop I have learnt to know so well. I fire a second shot, a third, a fourth. It is wonderful how quickly one can send off bullet after bullet in such moments. Now he is upon me, and I give him a fifth shot, à bout portant. In imagination I am done for, gashed by his great horn and flung into the air. I feel what a fool I was to expose myself in this way. A host of such impressions and reflections flash through my brain.

But, as it turns out, my last hour has not yet come. On receipt of my fifth bullet my assailant swerves round and lays himself open to my sixth just as he decides to take flight. Off he speeds now, never to be seen again, though we spend an hour trying to mark him down--a task which it is the easier for us to undertake in that he has fled in the direction in which we have to continue our march.

Orgeich, in his good-humoured way, remarks drily, “That was a near thing.”

Such “near things” may fall to the lot of the African hunter, however perfectly he may be equipped.

On another occasion, two rhinoceroses that I had not seen until that moment made for me suddenly. In trying to escape I tripped over a moss-covered root of a tree, and fell so heavily on my right hip that at first I could not get up again. Both the animals rushed close by me, Orgeich and my men only succeeding in escaping also behind trees at the last moment.

* * * * *

To descry one or two rhinoceroses grazing or resting in the midst of the bare velt and to stalk them all by yourself, or with a single follower to carry a rifle for you, is, I really think, as fascinating an experience as any hunter can desire. At the same time it is one of the most dangerous forms of modern sport. An English writer remarks with truth that even the bravest man cannot always control his senses on such occasions--that he is apt to get dazed and giddy. And the slightest unsteadiness in his hand may mean his destruction. He has to advance a long distance on all fours, or else wriggle along on his stomach like a serpent, making the utmost use of whatever cover offers, and keeping note all the time of the direction of the wind. He has to keep on his guard all the time against poisonous snakes. And he has to trust to his hunter’s instinct as to how near he must get to his quarry before he fires. I consider that a distance of more than a hundred paces is very hazardous--above all, if you want to kill outright. I am thinking, of course, of the sportsman who is hunting quite alone.

PIECE OF VERY HARD STONE FROM THE SIRGOI MOUNTAIN IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA, PRESENTED TO ME BY ALFRED KAISER. RHINOCEROSES WHET THEIR HORNS AGAINST THIS KIND OF STONE, MAKING ITS SURFACE QUITE SMOOTH.]

To-day I am to have an unlooked-for experience. A number of eland have attracted my attention. I follow them through the long grass, just as I did that time in 1896 when the flock of pearl-hens buzzed over me and I started the two rhinoceroses which nearly “did for” me. These antelopes claim my undivided attention. The country is undulating in its formation, and my men are all out of sight. I am quite alone, rifle in hand. The animals make off to the left and in amidst the high grass. I stand still and watch them. It would be too far to have a shot at the leader of the herd, so I merely follow in their tracks, crouching down. Now I have to get across a crevice. But as I am negotiating it and penetrating the higher grass on the opposite slope, suddenly, fifty paces in front of me, I perceive a huge dark object in among the reeds--a rhinoceros.

It has not become aware of me yet, nor of the peril awaiting it. It sits up, turned right in my direction. Now there is no going either forwards or backwards for me. The grass encumbers my legs--the old growth (spared by the great fires that sometimes ravage the whole velt between two rainy seasons) mingling with the new into an inextricable tangle. Such moments are full of excitement. It is quite on the cards that a second rhinoceros--perhaps a third--will now turn up. Who knows? Moreover, I have absolutely no inducement to bag the specimen now before my eyes--its horns are not of much account. I try cautiously to retreat, but my feet are entangled and I slip. Instantly I jump up again--the rhinoceros has heard the noise of my fall and is making a rush for me, spitting and snorting. It won’t be easy to hit him effectively, but I fire. As my rifle rings out I hear suddenly the singing notes like a bird in the air above, clear and resonant, and I seem to note the impact of the bullet. Next instant I see the rhinoceros disappearing over the undulating plain.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

RHINOCEROSES OFTEN REMAIN IN THIS SITTING POSTURE FOR QUITE A LONG TIME.]

I conclude that the bullet must have struck one of his horns and been turned aside, and that it startled the beast and caused him to abandon his attack.

* * * * *

But there are yet other ways in which you may be surprised by a rhinoceros. I had pitched my camp by the Pangani, in a region which at the time of Count Telekis’ expedition, some years before, was a swamp. Its swampy condition lasts only during the rainy season, but I found my camping-place to be very unsatisfactory and unhealthy. I set out therefore with a few of my men to find a better position somewhere on dryer land, if possible shaded by trees, and at a spot where the river was passable--a good deal to ask for in the African bush. For hours we pursued our search through “boga” and “pori,” but the marshy ground did not even enable us to get down to the river-side. Endless morasses of reeds enfolded us, in whose miry depths the foot sinks even in the dry weather, in which the sultry heat enervates us, shut in as we are by the rank growth that meets above our heads as we grope through it. At last we reach some solid earth, and it looks as though here, beneath some sycamores, we have found a better camping place. Deep-trodden paths lead down to the waterside. We follow them through the brushwood, I leading the way, and thus reach the stream. The rush and roar of the river resounds in our ears, and we catch the notes, too, of birds. Suddenly, right in front of me, the ground seems to quicken into life. My first notion is that it must be a gigantic crocodile; but no, it is a rhinoceros which has just been bathing, and which now, disturbed, is glancing in our direction and about to attack us or take to its heels--who can say? Escape seems impossible. Clasping my rifle I plunge back into the dense brushwood. But the tough viscous branches project me forward again. Now for it. The rhinoceros is “coming for” us. We tumble about in all directions. Some seconds later we exchange stupefied glances. The animal has fled past us, just grazing us and bespattering us with mud, and has disappeared from sight. How small we felt at that moment I cannot express! In such moments you experience the same kind of sensation as when your horse throws you or you are knocked over by a motorcar. (Perhaps this latter simile comes home to one best nowadays!) You realise, too, why the native hunters throw off all their clothing when they are after big game. On such occasions even the lightest covering hampers you, and perhaps endangers your life.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

A ROCK-POOL ON KILIMANJARO.]

* * * * *

Countless thousands of two-horned rhinoceroses are still to the good in East Africa. Yes, countless thousands! Captain Schlobach tells us that he would encounter as many as thirty in one day in Karragwe in 1903 and 1904. Countless also are the numbers of horns which are secured annually for sale on the coast. But how much longer will this state of things continue? And the specimens of the white rhinoceros of South Africa which adorn the museum in Cape Town and the private museum of Mr. W. Rothschild (and which we owe to Coryndon and Varndell) are not more valuable than the specimens also to be found in the museums of the “black” rhinoceroses still extant in East Africa.

This view of the matter will perhaps receive attention fifty or a hundred years hence.